Bipolar Addict on a Mission towards GROWTH

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So about a month after the email fiasco, Inn sister and I are shooting the shit in the backyard. I bring up social media, one of the many suggestions I had proposed to increase occupancy. Her response? “I think facebook is just a fad.” –Verbatim. I make her another business pitch, get no response and decide to shut off my business mind for this place.

I just rent here and get paid $0.80 an hour to answer phones. Whatever. It’s what I agreed to and I never asked for more. However, I did tell her what she paid me actually calculates out too an hour. She wrote back “as permission to live on this ground you will: not think of this as an hourly job, blah, blah,” –Sort of verbatim, but the very first condition she had was how I perceived the use of my time for other people. I usually call it work and it usually comes with fair compensation. I didn’t say any of this. In fact, I think I just said nothing to that email as it was 2 months after the fact of me living here. It just seemed…childish?

So, now we come to a few days ago, been living here 17 weeks now. On the phone, “working” with a prospective guest, I say, “well, they’ve been saying they need to redo the website since before I moved in, maybe it’s done?” So I jump online with said prospective guest on the phone and sure enough, it was! It looked great! Some real time had been put into it. There were pictures of the rooms by a professional; very flattering pictures.

For some reason or another Inn sister calls the Inn and I answer. Normally the store girl is still there but when it’s slow they leave early…adding more “work” time for me. So I tell Inn sister how beautiful the website is, what a great job. They take reservations on line there now and I spoke with her about how she was going to manage that with our, ahem, THEIR old fashioned book THEY write everything in. No plan in place.

So here I am, financially struggling so much that I decided to kill myself over a speeding ticket. I tell her I’d be happy to help. I’d work for half what I normally would because I just needed work. There’s a blog section on the new site and I love this local area! It’s heaven on earth to me! I used to be a paying guest at this Inn.

We had been in contact about my interest in buying the property until I heard what a ridiculously inflated value land has in this area. 30 miles away, big drug place. 20 miles away 2 guys were killed execution style in a trailer. Does that show the disparity? But I still fucking love it here. So being the dumb ass that I am, I offered to do work for Inn sister.

She comes out and accuses me of telling a disgruntled guest what to say because it “sounded like something I would say”. –Verbatim. She also says, “I don’t like you.” -Verbatim. And then “I don’t trust you.” – Verbatim. After the “don’t like” statement I gave her a chance setting her up to say, “well, I didn’t mean to say that” but nope, she just kept right on.

But funny how life works out. This was a few days after I wanted to kill myself but now I had my pot so I feel like a whole different person. I spoke with someone else about how this was a bit like 2nd grade where you tell the kid you don’t like them. I mean, seriously, there’s a lot of people I don’t like, I would never say so. But I’m her tenant/“employee”.

So now, I’m moving out. But you know the most magical part of it all? Everyone around me is being supportive. Usually when I move, it’s because I’ve messed everything up around me and I’ve got nothing left. I’m doing fine. I was a little depressed, obviously, but I’m better. I’ve got work to do, and thus money to make, I just was too depressed to do it and was depressed about being broke, caught in a vicious cycle. Coyote bait, pot and 60 year old 2nd graders all gave me a good wake up call. Goooood Morning!!!

Do I have to pay you now, cause damn that was therapeutic to get out!!

This is the continuation of a long rant just published. It’s probably make more sense to read them in order, but shit, do what ever you want…it’s your world.

Children of deceased parents inherited this Inn and store where I’m living. They want to sell it. But they run it like “inheriters” compared with entrepreneurs. I like to pride myself an entrepreneur so I like to be read on the subject. I feel fairly competent about business things.

The arrangement I had with said children, (they’re in there early 50’s up to 60’s, but you will see shortly, they’re children still…) is that I would rent the apartment, work in the shop once a week and help increase occupancy from a measley 30% to where someone who actually had to buy the property could cover a mortgage or rent. Unless they’re mommy and daddy are coming to buy them this property, they’re going to have to swing that expense and so occupancy must be raised.

I designed a marketing plan but first things first, before you start saying to the world, “Hey, Look at Me!!” you want to make sure you’re showing your best you possible. Housekeeping.

Ha! I almost said “we” lack proper signage. The fucking children lack proper signage. When your driving up from the local attraction, you have no idea what the building is until your right next and driving past said establishment. If you aren’t looking hard left as you drive by, you won’t know what you passed.

The rooms haven’t had any money put into them since probably 1982. Honest to god, there’s old upholstered couches in numerous rooms. Gross, right? When it comes to hotel rooms, I just assume people are going to have sex wherever they can. So to me, a couch in a hotel room makes me a little queasy just writing about it.

So I wrote an email to the woman with some aesthetic suggestions, everything with the only intention of helping. Maybe the curtains should match, sheets and pillowcases are all varying prints, mismatched color schemes, etc. Which is fine, if you’re charging a rate compared with what the consumer is getting. Look at it this way: if you come with 2 people, they charge you $30 for the extra person in the room. Soooo, they’re charging $30 for a skimpy cooked breakfast? If I’m fucking paying $30 a person for breakfast, I want crab legs and bottomless fucking champagne. Not scrambled eggs and potatoes.

Anyways, her response comes back in large red font. That should explain the content of her email. I wrote back prior to hearing from her to apologize if I came off too harsh, as I bcc’d a friend who said I was a bit blunt.

I just fucking say what I’m thinking, because at the end of the day in business, they call it efficiency. If you don’t like my suggestion, we move on to things we can take action on. That’s how business is performed but not how children play. So anyways, I apologized profusely to her email of “I don’t like your taste at all” –Verbatim, because, she had any idea at this juncture what my taste consisted of since I was just unpacking boxes and moving in.

After this email, the sister child who runs the store, became elusive about our plans to get her goods online and get her in social media since her target audience is the largest group of new users to facebook, grandma age. So they can check in on little Johnny since little Johnny is probably on facebook. I confront her, (efficiency) and she says she’s just not ready at this time. I’ve only covered 1 shift and 2 mornings in the over 4 months that I’ve lived here. Remember, supposed to be one day a week?

I thought I published Part 1, but,um, it looks like it was just still in draft form. I’m going to still run with I’m new to this shit. Ok…Sooooo Part 1 of my 3 part rant…

Stress is a killing factor for a bipolar person. It can drive you so close to the edge, well, over it for some people. It just weighs heavier on us compared with other people. Not many people would decide the best way to deal with the speeding ticket you just got is to drag yourself out to the desert, slit your wrists and feed the wildlife.

Then no one would have to deal with your cold, soulless body in what would surely be a traumatizing experience to said handlers. I had it figured out how to feed the dog enough food so that she had to find the other food over time. She’d probably just start eating it all up if I fed her enough to survive until someone noticed I wasn’t taking care of business.

But I’m here, obviously, taking care of business. I bought some pot and honestly, I feel like I don’t even know who that person was. Seriously. Like it was a dream or something. But that’s what stress does. I just melt into a pool of myself. Useless. Irrational. And crying hysterically. Truly a pathetic site.

But it’s rare these days and that’s the beauty of it. The past month, the doc has been changing my meds and I know it’s been a rough transition. Serious withdraws like never before from the one, citalopram. I’m still nibbling a small morsel off of a pill because I’m afraid to get sick again. Only once before in the 13 or so years of my adult life have I wanted (and did) go to the ER for pain. This time, it passed because there was no way I was driving myself 30 minutes to the hospital and it didn’t last too long. But that was some rough shit.

Years ago, pre-prescribed legal drugs, I was a mess all the time. I had a lot of issues and would black out, oh I don’t know, maybe monthly, for a few years. And just because I didn’t black out more than that doesn’t mean I wasn’t shit face wasted most of that month as well. It’s the blacking out that scared me.

At 110 lbs and cute, not being conscious is not good. I’m lucky. I’ve remained fairly unscathed. No one’s unscathed. That’s fucking life. You’re going to get scathed over time, no two ways about it.

Ahh, but why I’ve drifted there, couldn’t tell you. I’ve got the “bipolar barfious” going on lately. Sounds more official then, right? If you add –ious to it…Again, I’ve been delighted to hear from others out there in blogville about the barfing condition that happens to all of us. We often say wayyyyy more than we probably should have. Shhhhit, I’m actually dealing with the consequences of my fucking mouth right now.

I moved on to the grounds of an Inn. I rent an apartment in the back and answer the phones in the evening for a discount on my rent. It technically works out to like $0.80/ hr but I’m home anyways and the phone rings maybe once a night. I also can go eat breakfast for free when there are guests and I get my sorry ass out of bed in time. I go about once a week.

It’s kind of like working because I grew up in the service industry. It’s like a disease. I can’t help but be hospitable. “How was your stay?” “Where are you from?” I just want to eat, shoot the shit with the cook and roll out, but it’s a disease. I’ve got Server Disorder as well. Damn, I’m fucked up.

I’ve been slipping lately on my Dapperdom so this rant is for me, with the hopes it helps you too! Let’s take it back to the basics. Building blocks, Lincoln logs, keep it simple, stupid. We talked about all this before but Ima go there again.

Numero uno is deal with pain; physical, emotional, both have to be dealt with. Personally, I’m doing all right here in this department. I could use a couple Rolfings to straighten out my spine a little but I also know how to position myself so I straighten out my spine on my own…albeit much slower rate, but still.

And if I could get a good cocktail going with my meds, I’d be fine emotionally. Blows me away, sometimes almost literally, how crazy I get when the meds stop working. Half the time I think I just say they’re working cause I sincerely want to believe that. And after a little while, the placebo effect wears off and out comes crazy again.

Enough of that. Back to Dapperdom. We’re all the same, literally. If you go allllll the way down, deep, deep down, we’re just little electrons and protons and neutrons. Zipping around, sometimes slowly, sometimes quickly. Did you know that sometimes electrons just DISAPEAR from one location and REAPEAR in another location! Scientists will be watching them and then poof they’re gone from here and instantaneously show up over there. And it happens all the time. Woah. I started getting a little queasy from all their jumping around inside of me!! Nobody really knows sometimes why they’re moving. Oh wait that’s a lie.

I forget that we all know everything all ready. We just forget. So I guess we DO know why those little buggers jump around; I’m just drawing a blank at the present moment. So when you get tired and, as I am now, start thinking about some caffeine, remember we got so much energy inside of us. We could just up and disappear if we wanted too. And I guess if we also have to remember how to do that. Since we’re just electrons, and electrons can jump between worlds, well, shit…so can we.

I’m going to go for a walk along Rio Boonieville. If you’d care to join me and the mutt, we’d love the company. Set your electrons to Boonieville and I’ll see you soon!! You’re going to love it here!! My electrons do!!

With your map in hand, take a moment to look over what is located where in the Baqua map. Is your love and relationship section in the bathroom? No wonder you always have shitty relationships. Is your health and family section a dumping ground for, well, anything? No wonder your sick and your family hates you. Ok, they just called. They don’t hate you. They may be a little peeved right now but they don’t hate you.

Look into the space in question. Is it cluttered? Is it dirty? Do you like the objects in this space or do they remind you of things you’d rather forget? This may all seem like common sense but so often we (ok…I…) walk around things instead of dealing with them. Like for example, the pile by my front door for the thrift store. It’s grown into, well, it’s own private store. Time to take action and take it to the thrift store.

So what’s the first area you’re going to work on? I would suggest picking the area your having the most difficulties in. Is it your health? Your wealth? Your creativity? Your career? Make that decision and go forward from there.

The easiest improvements you can make are clearing clutter. Maybe you’re not an out an out hoarder but let’s be real…you don’t need all that stuff!

One of the basic premises of Feng Shui is the flow of Chi. And no, that’s not a type of tea. Pronounced chee, the Chinese believe it to be vital life force energy. It flows naturally, unless hindered and blocked by say…a pile for the thrift store. There are many ways to describe it but put basically; it’s good stuff and you want it to flow effortlessly.

Even though Chi is some magical stuff, it’s not a very good driver. If you put stuff in it’s way, like a stack of newspapers that touches the ceiling, Chi will get all jammed up. But it doesn’t even have to be as extreme as that. A few shelves with no detectable order will jam it up. For being so omnipresent and eternal, it’s pretty damn picky.

So your homework for this week in Operation Feng Shui (OFS for short) is

A) Clear the clutter…ALL of it

B) Choose your focus area, the space that can use the biggest boost

C) Write out affirmations for all the areas

I know, I know, no more damn affirmations. But these ones you write out, hide in the space and can essentially forget about. This is something you can do tonight for the low cost of some ink, paper and time. I suggest starting them out with “I am so happy and grateful now that…” and fill it in for each different area.

For the health and family example you might say “I am so happy and grateful now that I enjoy a healthy loving relationship with myself and all of my friends and family.” Slide the paper under something in that area and forget about it.

Stay tuned as we walk thru each area and add enhancements in an upcoming blog. And let me know how it’s going or any questions you may have. Now go get you Shui on!!

One of the best things I ever did for myself was admit I had addiction problems and accept that I have bipolar disorder. I’m by no ways saying this is easy to do, just that it was immensely helpful. Reality had always been something I avoided at all costs…including my soul, at times.

Honestly, it seems everyone is ducking out of reality these days. TV is a serious reality avoider. Plus, your even watching non-reality since science has proven that when you observe something, that thing changes. It becomes aware of the observer and changes it’s behavior. Be it a dog or a crazy Jersey lady or an amoeba, they all change.

So I’d imagine the same things happens with our issues. When we look at them, they, by law, will change. See? We can already put a dent in whatever we’re avoiding just by looking at it.

Admitting I had issues needing to be dealt with enabled me to take a huge leap forward. Cause when you admit it, can’t deny it anymore and you now have to take action. Or I guess you don’t. We always have the option to continue on the bumpy road we have chosen for ourselves.

What? I didn’t choose this shit hole of a life, you may say. Wellllll, I think you did. I was seeing a hypnotherapist for a little while. You may have realized by now, my fellow Blogvillians, I’ll try anything to grow better. During one of the sessions we went into my past lives. See, in a Polarity treatment(again, another modality for healing) I realized I had intense grief issues.

So we went back in time to figure it out. I lost a husband, Paul, and I felt guilt over not warning him of the impending danger. I held a little ceremony in the hills of New Mexico and honored him. He never blamed me, he said. Wow. Way off track. I whizzed thru another uneventful lonely life of my past. And then my most recent one.

The life before this one I’m in, I was a mess. Actually OD’d. So when I was born, I carried that energy over. I was born in pain with colic and poorly designed inner ears, leading to what used to plague me my entire life, ear infections. Not to mention drug addictions and bipolar disorder. And so I carried that last life forward for most of my life.

But then I saw a little glimmer of hope, somewhere…maybe in some child’s eye. We control our destiny. We determine our fate. And so I set sail for the land of Dapperdom. I paddled thru the seas with ease. Used to always have storms, but these days, these days heading to Dapperdom…boat doesn’t rock too much anymore.

So be real, what are you avoiding? Change it right now by confronting it. Tackle it! Take it down! Or perhaps…just admit.